Food

At King James pupils will be taught how to cook and apply the principles of nutrition and healthy eating. We feel at King James that learning how to cook is a crucial life skill that enables pupils to feed themselves and others affordably and well, now and in later life. The curriculum devised has been extensively planned to incorporate the guidance set by the British Nutrition Foundation in their report “Core competences for children and young people aged 5 to 16 years“, published in 2016.  

Our Curriculum

Learning in Food & Nutrition starts in KS2, where pupils study the subject in the topic projects that pupils undertake.  The KS2 teaching team work in collaboration with the DT/Food department to develop interesting and relevant projects and tasks that meet the KS2 National Curriculum for DT, of which Food is a key part.

During Year 7-9 pupils will undertake four Food & Nutrition rotations across the 3 years of KS3 (see the Learning Journeys here).  Pupils will be taught to:

• Understand and apply the principles of nutrition and health.

• Cook a range of predominantly savoury dishes so that they are able to feed themselves and others a healthy and varied diet.

• Become competent in a range of cooking techniques [for example, selecting and preparing ingredients; using utensils and electrical equipment; applying heat in different ways; using awareness of taste, texture and smell to decide how to season dishes and combine ingredients; adapting and using their own recipes and plan out meals]

• Understand and apply the basic principles of Food Safety, covering the 4 C’s (Cooking, Chilling, Cleaning and Cross-Contamination).

• Obtain understanding on basic food science and food provenance, ascertaining how food is sourced and manufactured into our everyday products, and then into consumables through a variety of processes.

Pupils who wish to continue with Food at KS4 can opt for  GCSE Food Preparation and Nutrition (OCR) see here.  This is an exciting and creative course, which has a big focus on practical cooking skills. The course also develops a deeper understanding of nutrition and how our diets can play a huge role in our health/fitness and possible diet related illness/disease. The course also has a big emphasis on food science and the working characteristics of food materials, pupils see hands on how science plays a big role in how the food looks, tastes and combines to make dishes we all love. At its heart, this qualification focuses on nurturing students’ practical cookery skills to give them a strong understanding of nutrition.

There are other key topics that pupils must learn that are essential to have a broad knowledge in this subject, such as food safety, food choice and food provenance.   The five core topics that are integrated into both theory and practical lessons are:

• Food, nutrition and health

• Food science

• Food safety

• Food choice

• Food provenance.

Assessment in Food 

Periodically pupils will be assessed to assess their learning during their Food rotation across KS3 (see here).  The GCSE is assessed using examplar material from the OCR website (see link above), as well as during practical's.

The curriculum is monitored in a variety of ways, with both pupils and teachers having a say in how it develops. Each year we look at the whole curriculum for Food at King James and update aspects as required to meet the needs of our pupils and ensure we keep the curriculum fresh and relevant for our pupils.